Introducing Social Psychology – Aggression
Why do people do the things they do? How accurate are our common sense beliefs about this? How do our
beliefs about causes of behaviors differ for our own behaviors versus others’ behaviors? These are all
fundamental questions within the field of social psychology. Social psychology is the study of how the real
or imagined presence of others influences our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Specifically, social
psychologists study and explain how people perceive social events and each other, how people influence each other, and how people relate to other individuals or groups.
You begin the course with an introduction to the field of social psychology and one of the most important
concepts within it, construals. Then, you explore how a social psychological lens can be applied to help
explain and even reduce one type of human behavior—aggression.